“I’m gonna take one.”

That’s all he said as he skated by the bench, the guy with the red armband on his striped referee’s jersey.  But he was completely understood.

The game was getting out of control, scrums after every whistle, face-washes and high-sticks the most common features of the game so far that night.

What the referee meant in that short, four word drive-by, is that when the next post-whistle gathering occurs, he’s going to take a single player out of that scrum and give him a two-minute ticket to the penalty box, thus leaving his team with a player disadvantage for those two minutes.  And in a crucial, hard-fought playoff game, where the stakes are at their highest, nobody wants to be the guy who ends up being the reason for your season coming to an end, the result of a game lost by giving up a power play goal while you sat and watched. It’s not fun being that guy in the dressing room after the final whistle.

It keeps teams honest and accountable

That referee skated by both benches and cautioned both coaches similarly, and they both took heed of the warning.  There would be no more scrums, face-washing and needle work with sticks.  Order would be restored, and the game would be won and lost on the merits of hockey talent and skill, and not on thuggery. Or so the theory goes.

As it works in hockey, so too might it work with grocery stores.